A man from the town of Rebecq is being prosecuted in the Walloon Brabant Court of Assizes for setting fire to a Belgian flag and a portrait of the King during a religious service in the church of Rebecq in November 2022. He is also accused of slapping the parish priest in April earlier that year.
Before his lawyer arrived, when the president called the defendant to check that he was present at the beginning of the trial, the accused man stood up in the courtroom, held up a Belgian flag and spat on it.
The case concerning the burning of the Belgian flag in the church in Rebecq had already been examined last November, but the defendant's comments in court led the court to request that he be seen by a psychiatrist to determine whether he was suffering from a mental disorder. The man had claimed in court that Belgium was not a nation and that Belgians were not a people. He also did not recognise the authority of the King's prosecutor and claimed he was a descendant of French royalty.
The results of that report were examined at Monday’s hearing, where a second case had therefore been added. The defendant said he had gone to see the psychiatrist but called him a “communist Jew” in the court, disputing the findings which did suggest medical internment. A measure of internment was demanded by the prosecution.
The defendant said he was currently engaged in political activities “with the aim of a legitimist restoration and in anticipation of a military coup” in France. The court will deliver its judgment on 22 May.
